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The time is here! Next week Texas High School students will take their TAKS test. While last minute cramming is never recommended, many students and parents are looking for ways to make sure that they are prepared up to the day of test. Earlier in the year I tried to access the Texas Assessment Interactive site and was sadly disappointed to see that the site was no longer supported by TEA. Well, thankfully, that has changed…at least for now! Parents and Students can select interactive or printable study guides by grade level and subject. Lessons can be done actively online …

Since getting Smartboards and Notebook software four years ago, I hardly EVER user powerpoint. I try to keep the content as the main focus of my lessons but every now and then I do like to jazz up my pages with just a hint of color. Believe it or not, power point is great for doing just that…quickly adding a little color to your Notebook lessons. Basically I create the pull tab, text box or sign in ppt and paste it into Notebook 10…that quick!!! I’ve created a video explaining how I do it. At the time, I was creating …

For years, I have been thinking about starting my own blog. Until now, I’ve never had the time nor the drive to it. I’ve helped friends and friends of friends kick start their own “online” social presence but I have honestly never planned on driving myself to share until now. What you will find here amongst the clutter of my thoughts are my perceptions of web 2.0 tools, smartboard tips as well as IPAD integration…as soon as my device hits my hands =) Everyday will bring on new changes as I am constantly looking for ways to make this blog …

One problem that I had been having in class is students not completing class work or homework. In addition, going over homework can be such a tedious task that even I wanted to fall asleep. My students LOVE being able to work problems on the Smartboard but are often quiet when the time comes to volunteer. Using my notebook software, I can create a quick way to randomly choose students as well randomly choose the problem that each student will work. Somewhere along the way, my students figured out that they needed to come to class prepared and my “lack …

About a year ago, I was introduced to Odosketch through a friend. Although it has absolutely nothing to do with math, I still love to crank it up in class just to get my student’s creative juices flowing. For an art teacher, it is wonderful because on top of students being able to create incredibly rich sketches, they can also look at sketches that others have created in an animated form that to me is quite fantastic…especially considering how talented these digital artist are. In addition, sketches can be embedded in any web page, so sharing student work is even …

One of the neatest tools that I’ve learned through twitter is Lino. Linoit.com is basically an electronic cork board. What I love about it is that you can store video, links, images and even documents in one interactive document. Each entry is created as a “post it”. Once the task is completed or no longer needed, users can just “peel off” each note. Canvases can be saved as private canvases or as public allowing users to post or save content that you have posted. On a SMARTboard, Linoit provides a nifty way to save and present a concept or topic …

Two summers ago, my daughter took a speech class from a pretty innovative instructor. She was, and still is, very much so open to new ideas and she integrates a great deal of technology when she can. One of the assignments that all of our speech kids do is the mock interview. The mock interview is normally a face-to-face interview that is done between a student and a willing participant where the concept of a correct and incorrect interview are acted out. After a casual conversation between myself and my daughter’s teacher, I volunteered to create an interview that she …

I’m always looking for ideas to add interactivity to my SMARTboard lessons. The easiest and fastest way is to utilize the Lesson Activity Toolkit, located in Notebook 10 Software. I have two favorite activities in the Lesson Activity Toolkit. One is called sentence arrange and the other is called image select. Both can be customized in less than 10 minutes and ready for your students to use, no matter what subject you teach.

About a month ago, I started using my now discontinued Flip Cam in my classroom to really analyze how my students collaborated. While, I wasn’t amazed at the results, I still get chills watching as my students work with and teach each other…especially when it produces the assessment results that the following encounter produced.

Today in Algebra we began learning about laws of exponents…just the basics, multiplying and dividing. I started out with the traditional notes + homework “packet” and I know that the kids were bored because…well, I was. I decided to finish the activity that we were doing and get the class on MangaHigh. I used Manga High a little bit last year but discontinued using after I saw the cost. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Manga High is 100% Free now…YES FREE for all teachers and students. With that said, it’s pretty much guaranteed that I am loading …